Brian and Barbara Finch celebrate 50 years of love through letters
During the Vietnam War the only thing that kept 21 year old Brian Finch sane were the daily letters from his sweetheart — 50 years on, the love is still there.
Parramatta
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Barbara Allen did not mean to write a letter to Brian Finch while he was on the frontline in Vietnam in 1967. The 17 year old had hoped to reach another soldier named Graham Humphries, who had placed a classified in the daily newspaper for a pen pal.
“I got a response from Brian because Graham had too many pen pals and had flogged them off to him,” Mrs Finch (nee Allen) said.
“I started writing every other day, but after a bit it was every single day.”
Mr Finch, who was 21-years-old at the time of the first letter, now 73, was in love immediately.
“She had a boyfriend at the time of the first letter and she would write me about him, but I knew I would marry her.”
The couple, now with three children, four grandchildren and one great grandchild, were engaged soon after their first letter was sent and married in September 1969.
“Everyone told me it would never last,” Mrs Finch said.
“But when I first saw him in person I felt it was right.”
The piles of letters, which Mrs Finch, 68, keeps neatly in a cardboard box have been lovingly ordered and re-read by the couple.
“When I go, these letters are coming with me,” she said holding the first letter she received from her husband tightly to her chest.
The pair admit the 50 years have not been a picnic, with Mr Finch suffering post-traumatic stress after the war and battling depression and alcoholism.
“She had to put up with some dreadful behaviour,” Mr Finch said.
Their love of the written word continued when they returned as a married couple to Woodpark, when both took up jobs in the postal service.
“We love each other, but we couldn’t work together every day,” Mrs Finch said.
“That would be pushing the envelope.”
Mr Finch would take the letters on the rounds, delivering in western Sydney while Mrs Finch worked in administration at the office in Merrylands.
“Our lives have been made by letters,” Mrs Finch said.
“I never thought about how much they changed us.”
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